Microsoft will launch two feature phones next week, leaving the smartphone market to its licensees in favour of a broader attack on the cellular market.
The news has been rumoured for a while, and an invitation to a press conference on Monday bears out the timing. Also, CNET, claiming inside information, says Microsoft will …

COMMENTS

Nearly there...

I just want a phone, but, I have to admit, with T9 and the ability to display text. Everything else is superfluous. Colour - don't need it to display text. Camera, sorry, no. I have several digital cameras, each for their own niche (and several film cameras too). Video - no. Internet - no. Social networking - keep it. GPS, 3G, whatever - no.

I know that for a lot of folk, these things are either needed, or equally importantly, wanted, but I have yet to see the need.

I just want a phone

That's hardly surprising really chum...

Someone who has more than one Digital Camera (one of which they are implying they carry around with them all the time) and isn't a professional photographer doesn't exactly strike me as the sort who would ever use Social Networking or even make phone calls for that matter.

Can't wait!

Confused...

Normally a company will stick to it's knitting. There was me thinking that Microsoft did Office and Windows. Obviously Monkey Boy Ballmer knows different and that taking on the likes of Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and all the Asian phone manufacturers in their core market isn't going to end in (his) tears.

This smacks of jerking knees more like a politician than the leadership of one of the world's great companies.

Agree and disagree

I'm sure these phones and Microsoft's motivation to produce non-full OS phones will vanish into the aether leaving no lasting impression whatsoever, but they did quite well shouldering into the games business, didn't they? So it's not completely beyond them to add new competences.

Re: Confused

No need to be confused. MS bought Danger along with it's Sidekick brand of mobile comms devices. They might not have taken off in the UK but I understand they are pretty popular in the US amongst the 16-21 year demographic - which is a massively important demographic to ALL tech companies. These are the people who, in a few years time, will have the largest proportion of disposable income so building brand loyalty (if such a thing exists) could prove very rewarding.

so is this the evolution of the Sidekick?

My first thought too

But they better be careful about branding... If they push both Sidekick-ish and business phones through the same brands then they're going to erode their current position in the business phone market. They really don't need to re-run the Vista Home vs Vista Ultimate fiasco in mobile space.

Oh dear.

I disagree with some of what your saying there, MS hardware has always been second to none, they have been at the front of design and reliability, in 10 years ive had 2 MS mouses and there is no sign of that or any other MS hardware i own breaking any time soon.

As for software, you are correct, people dont "need" MS products, after all there is about 20 open source equivelent versions of anything MS has producted, but people do "want" to use them. There is consistancy in all its office programs that allows pretty much anyone to get on with the work in an more productive way at any computer, including backward compatability which is essential in businesses. If someone i know has a problem with documents 8 times out of 10 they are using some version of open office.

Windows is what every day joe blogs wants to use because it works, no messing about, no trawling forums to get help with installing something, its easy, it may not be perfect but generally for the largest market out there it is what they want.

MS are targeting younger generations for a reason, because generally they will replace the current ones. Kids now a days are a lot more tech savvy and id expect them to try more things like Opensource, The main bulk of public today wants MS, the future public may not IF MS doesnt target them now. These products may not be intresting now to us but to the young ones it may be gold dust to MS,

Targeting younger generation?

The younger generation want something fashionable. Unfortunately for MS, they justy don't understand how to create a fashion brand like, say, Apple do. MS phones for the average teen/twenty-something just won't work for the same reason that Zune didn't. Why would anyone link their image to Zune etc when they can buy an iphone/ipod?

If MS do go after the kids then they're cutting off the only area where they have had any semblance of mobile success: Business phones.

RE: Oh dear

"MS hardware has always been second to none, they have been at the front of design and reliability, in 10 years ive had 2 MS mouses"

They're made by someone else and rebranded. Next!

"As for software, you are correct, people dont "need" MS products, after all there is about 20 open source equivelent versions of anything MS has producted, but people do "want" to use them."

Nope. People's bosses buy the software for the office because "We've always had Windoze".

"If someone i know has a problem with documents 8 times out of 10 they are using some version of open office."

Funny, I thought you were going to say that they forgot to save in Office 97 compatibility mode and their colleagues couldn't open the file in Office 2003...

"Windows is what every day joe blogs wants to use because it works, no messing about, no trawling forums to get help with installing something, its easy, it may not be perfect but generally for the largest market out there it is what they want."

So, with Windows you DON'T need to reinstall the operating system every three months? It's funny because my experience was exactly the opposite. There WAS a lot of messing about and trawling forums to get help.

"MS are targeting younger generations for a reason, because generally they will replace the current ones."

So MS are adopting the same tactics that drug dealers allegedly were in the early 90s. "Target them young". Doesn't surprise me.

Ref: Oh dear ...

Hello Darren. Noticed you didn't mention the Xbox 360 when stating about Microsoft and reliable hardware. You have heard of it, haven't you? You know the one, the only piece of hardware that was exclusively built by Microsoft. Instead you mention things like mice, which are designed and built by other companies (Logitech mainly) and just rebranded as Microsoft.

You mention software as well, getting in a dig at Openoffice - which makes you a troll by the way. Well, 9 times out of 10 when people have problems with their computers the problem is Windows - not the computer. I am so fed up with it that when people say their computer is broken I now tell them that it is not the computer but Microsoft Windows. I save them hundreds of pounds by fixing it. Without me they would just go out and buy a new computer.

As for Office I have to correct you. Either your friends are extremely thick or you are trolling. When I meet people who have problems with Office type doucments 10 times out of 10 they are Microsoft Office documents, and we deal with ALL types of office documents, whether it is OpenOffice, WordPerfect, MS Office etc.

Windows is not what every day Joe Blogs wants. It is just forced onto them by the monopoly and useless OEMs. And people do have problems with it. Want proof? Well, go read the forums - you'd be amazed. From simple things like installing software to CD Drives suddenly going missing because of a registry setting, or the ntldr suddenly corrupting (this is a favourite). Want to know something? It happens in all versions of Windows.

And then there are the viruses. I am now getting batches of Windows 7 machines with viruses now. You will blame the user but I don't. these people I deal with don't go to dodgy websites (well, one did - a teenager with porn). Ok, a handful download dodgy stuff but the majority don't yet they still get viruses. They know not to believe what the web tells them so they don't click on the 'You have a virus - click here to scan' link as I have taught them pretty well, after the first time they did it. It is all down to broken software!

Next time, please think about what you say. Don't lick Microsofts arse and see beyond the trees.

haha

im not actually going to go in to all of that, simply because i dont have too, fair enough you think im talking BS, well, thats fine by me, but since i been in the business for years ive racked up a fair amount of experience, my opinion is that most windows problems are user errors, ie they screwed it up.

Just one thing about MS hardware, you are aware that apple dont make it either? they do what MS does, they design something and get someone else to build it. The xbox is intresting, the RROD issue is largely fixed but yes there appears to have been a design oversight originally, Funny thing is Sony has the same kind of issue.

Lets take the Logitec argument for a sec, assuming they do build MS gear, its amazing how crap their own products are. I know the IP of the hardware is MS but you would have thought they would have learnt something by now, no, instead they build cheep hardware which seems to have a poor desk life.

One last thing, Virus dispite the name do not magicially spread from on PC to the next, there has to be user intervention, if it be clicking on a website as you suggest or opening dodgy emails, they all requirer user intervention, same for hacking, a couple of years back i did a wee experiment, and had a bunch of PCs setup with no protection at all, half had propper training and didnt use admin accounts the other half didnt and used standard admin acounts. amazing thing was those PCs with the folk knowing what they were doing never had any issues, where as the others had serious problems, so my argument stands, if the IT admins know what they are doing as do the users most problems do not have the chance to arrise..

With current UAC protection the user needs to not only do something stupid in the first place but they need to the click on are you sure!

Nokia C5

This is really the market that the Nokia C5 is aiming for.. a traditional "candy bar" smartphone running Symbian. It looks like a normal phone, has some run-of-the-mill features but it *can* do a lot more if you want it to. Surprisingly, the C5 finds itself up against very little competition..

Wait for the first..

Kids are tech savvy today

Right, just like they are car savvy, they can get in and drive, guess where the windscreen wiper is and find the drink tray. Does that really make them savvy?

All the teenagers I know fall into two categories, computer lovers (gamers, computer students) and computer users (every other kid in the first world who has music on their phone and sends 100+ texts a day).

Computer users are limited to whats on the device or what their friends use... no open source sorry. So I guess Microsoft is marketing in the right direction then.